Amadeus, Chichester

“I tried to write a play, not history,” said Peter Shaffer about his controversial 1979 hit, Amadeus, which charts the relationship between Salieri (played by Rupert Everett) who was top court composer in Vienna in the 1780s until the arrival of the brilliant young talent Mozart. Did a jealous Salieri do all he could to hinder Mozart’s career? Might he have gone further and actually murdered him? The whole thing makes for a gaudy, operatic, theatrically lush evening which some have dubbed as genius and others dismissed as brash musical melodrama. Shaffer’s play is the first performance in this newly refurbished space.

Natural Affection, London

William Inge was known as “the playwright of the Midwest”, with his taut family dramas. If this sounds a little Tennessee Williams, then it’s no surprise that critic Inge was turned on to writing by that literary giant of the deep south. Inge had success with such pieces as Come Back Little Sheba, Bus Stop and Picnic, all of which were turned into Hollywood movies; the latter won him a Pulitzer prize, while Bus Stop starred Marilyn Monroe. Natural Affection is set in a small apartment in Chicago in 1962 and tells of a couple who welcome back a delinquent son, with tragic results. It originally only lasted 36 performances in New York, falling victim to a five-month newspaper strike which lessened its exposure.

Milton Keynes International Festival

The international ambition of this annual festival suggests infinite possibilities, and while its 10-day run is finite, the productions staged by some of the companies programmed this year are not. After all, Ilotopie will be walking on water with Fous de Bassin, a terrific outdoor show at Willen Lake (Fri & 19 Jul). Elsewhere in the programme, Casus’s simple but breathtaking circus show, Knee Deep, plays the Spiegeltent (Fri to 21 Jul) as does Les Clöchards (24 Jul), and you should check out Ray Lee’s Chorus, The Iron Man by Graeae (Willen Lake, 23-25 Jul), and Periplum’s installation Imaginarium (Willen Lake, 23-25 Jul).

Ferment Fortnight, Bristol

The future takes over Bristol’s Old Vic and other venues this week as the Ferment Fortnight cooks up a storm of new shows, emerging artists, and work that’s just a little bit different. Today at the Milk Bar, Ella Good and Nicki Kent consider whether life on a different planet is possible in A Decade With Mars. Hannah Sullivan’s Violent Creatures (Wed) considers when play fighting becomes real; and Amy Mason will be exploring what she really feels about God in Mass (Thu), which uses the structure of a Roman Catholic service. The ticket prices are cheap, the work is likely to be fragile but stimulating, and if the sun shines there’s also a beer garden.

The Sheffield Mysteries, Sheffield

The original mystery plays were very much community affairs, and by all accounts quite lively too as local people reinvented Bible stories in a way that was relevant and made sense for them and how they lived in medieval England. So it’s appropriate that they are being reimagined again for 21st-century performers and audiences as over 100 actors from Sheffield’s People’s Theatre take to the stage with a very modern look at contemporary life.

This Was A Man, London

The UK premiere of a play by Noël Coward seems unlikely given how his back catalogue and lesser oeuvres must have been thoroughly plundered by now. This Was A Man was first staged in New York in 1926 and across Europe but was banned by the Lord Chamberlain here for its flippant treatment of adultery. The Finborough Theatre has bagged the first UK professional outing, though it was performed by the mostly amateur Tower Theatre in Islington in 1989 (yours truly gave the seminal definition of the cameo role of toyboy Lord Romford, and yes, it was quite a while ago, thank you). Supposedly shocking at the time, the piece hardly stands comparison with the likes of Design For Living but it’s a curiosity nonetheless. Belinda Lang directs.